Fusion Methodology™ Challenge
The client was prototyping a new business model to help women with an early-stage sensitive health issue. The product innovation idea was a pay-for social app where women could interact and get help to improve their lives. The previous iterations and testing methods had not been able to determine the efficacy. The team’s behavioral scientist wanted a method that would provide better insight and depth. In particular they needed to see if the design of community and the anonymity of the internet would help improve outcomes.
Approach
Valen utilized our Fusion MethodologyTM which is an agile learning method providing depth of insight for clarity and iterative learning. We utilized our intensive screening to select the fusion group and added a control group. Our approach with Fusion is to study the whole journey and so we began the behavioral study by having women sign up for the application and enter. We utilize mostly observation with interventions of directed activities and discussion to understand motivations and tensions. We let the consumer drive the direction of research with the insight team conducting mid-week stand-ups and weekly huddle to synthesize learning and make the next week plan. We utilized video and text analysis to help dig deeper to find results.
Results
After six weeks of intense iterative learning, we were able to make some conclusive recommendations that the client was unable to reach previously due to the unique Fusion MethodologyTM approach. First, it was clear the business model overall worked and while certain elements of the model such as some features in the app didn’t motivate the women as expected, several key drivers were explained, and value of the approach could be demonstrated. We provided a detailed journey map of every phase of the process to help guide the development team to hone the app and feature scope. The app tested was a very early prototype so there were many small details that could be identified from the journey map as well as the emotional and behavioral cues. Furthermore, the stories that we were able to capture from video were heartbreaking and helpful to provide demonstrable success and explain through our empathy analysis the importance of how we were positively affecting the lives of these women. In fact, the business model had more promise than they realized, we recommended reframing this from a single use social app to a social platform that could be replicated across other health areas. Thinking bigger about this as a social platform to empower women at earliest stages to find support and improve their lives on many sensitive health issues significantly elevated the importance and potential shareholder value of the newly framed business model.
